all together alone

let me be
all alone together
with you
and you are...who?
anyone
(on desperate days)

in the city

(we've changed into)
everyone
and we are...what?
alone
all together alone
let me be

Wednesday PLANS (in Seuss)

what? oh what

did i tonight?

i can not

will not

tell a lie

i did NOT ride the London Eye

was NOT strolling

'long the Thames

i was NOT Cathedralling

late night hymns

NOT on a bus

(two deckers tall)

NOT shakin' clubs

(from wall to wall)

nor in the pub

my pounds all spent

my ticket stub

tells where I went

A Written Prayer

Creator God
thank you for written word
spoken y despues created
in tangible form
poetry-the gift of speech
made physical
-metaphor for You,
the Christ
God incarnate
THE WORD
flesh and alive
among men

Subway to St. Paul's

he strums his pipe organ
head down
determined to dine
on more than
poetic icons
on walls reverberating
emo trumpet dirge like
an army of souls of
chiorboys
reverberating off St. Paul's
walls
each voice singing:

"soon, soon i will climb
from this blackened earth
into the diffident light."

meanwhile
street-bard
calls me "blackbird...
singing in the dead of night..."

Palmer's Lodge

you teach me the secret of contentment
as London calls for going and coming
and going and moving and doing
you are my Victorian victory
quietly triumphant
over restlessness
you give me rest
in just right chairs
in a cup of tea
in A Wrinkle in Time
in the only London you let touch me...
a soothing cool wind
through your open windows

transit authority (in two parts)

flat top cotton plains
shadowed by wings
of silver plane
pierced from below by
fairy-tale castles white
snow made mountains
i sight i magine my flight
is not a number but
MY FLIGHT o'er this
imagined Middle Earth
between familiar earth
and outer space
for five and twenty days
this road of sky
is my home...my place
to dream
to be
to write
to read
refuse the call to do
do...do
all that London says i can...
too busy tour-guiding
those compelled the fear
of missing sights
to believe
in who
i am

and beneath
make-believe
cities in sky
i
look
down
not up
nor out
at real steel
and glass
collectives
of blues
of Hemingway
of Big Sweaty Men
and the sea-called-Lake
Michigan
i look out
at sunset
down at tops of tallest
buildings i've climbed-
-until now
i wait for darkness
for the Great Chicago Fire
of countless man-made lights
i ask "how did i get here?!"
it was the Blue-Line
train from O'Hare
it was directions
a bellman gave
it was onboard a plane
it was onboard fate
and it was
my
coming of age

here lies sam

“ugliest dog in the world”
yet loved
by most beautiful
of all creatures…

woman

and
here i am
“chief of ugly-hearted men”
yet loved
by Love
in whose image
were made
she/i

loved
by Love

known in this

loving

of ugly dogs